Where does Paul compare a husband's relationship with his wife to Christ's relationship with the church?
Paul draws the analogy in Ephesians chapter 5. There he compares a husband’s relationship with his wife to Christ’s relationship with the Church. The context also connects this to the body of Christ and the coming wedding, but the specific passage cited is Ephesians 5.
Les explains that Paul takes the concept of a father arranging his son’s bride and the espousal or engagement, and applies it to the engagement between the body of Christ and Christ as the head, with the wedding yet to transpire in glory. Les says he still holds that the body of Christ is the bride, not Israel, because Paul writes to the Corinthians, members of the body of Christ. There Paul warns that as the serpent beguiled Eve through subtlety, so their minds could be corrupted from the simplicity in Christ. This connects back to Adam and Eve as the first human family, where God made the man the head of the woman. Then Les turns to Ephesians chapter 5, where Paul draws the analogy between the husband’s relationship with his wife and Christ’s relationship with the Church.
More Questions
What does Paul compare the husband-wife relationship to in Ephesians 5?
In Ephesians 5, Paul presents the human husband-wife relationship as a correlation with Christ as the Head (husband) and the Body of Christ, the composite of church-age believers.